Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 Read online

  He didn’t need a woman. Hell, he didn’t want that kind of distraction now, couldn’t afford it. Of course, if that had been part of their plan, it was working like a charm. He couldn’t think straight with her in the truck.

  Biggest logic problem with the whole thing? That new Mark on his neck. That screwed every theory he had. It was not like they’d snuck in and tattooed him with burning ink…

  “We’ve driven past the house twice now, you know.” Sarah stared out the window as she spoke, her long elegant fingers stroking Bandit’s small head.

  And he didn’t think she’d been paying attention. Guess she wasn’t as unnerved by his oh so manly combination of Old Spice antiperspirant, lake water, and wet dog.

  “Give me a few minutes to check things out.”

  “Okay.” Sarah stared at him for a moment and Tim felt like a frog under a microscope. She knew what he was doing. The knowledge shined out of her eyes. She knew, she understood, and apparently, she agreed that it was necessary.

  That worried him. What the hell was he getting himself into? And why couldn’t he walk away? God knew, this whole scenario screamed nothing but trouble.

  “If you want my help, you’ve got to start talking to me. You can start by telling me where you’ve been all these years and why you haven’t aged a single day.” Tim gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached and went back to checking rooflines, corners, cars, and shadows. He’d probably crack a damn tooth, but he’d wait her out, get some answers.

  All the while, that Mark on the side of his neck heated and burned, like he’d been injected with a twelve-hour Bengay time-release medicine capsule under the skin. His scar was normally numb, so the extra sensation was making him edgy.

  She sighed, and Bandit lifted her head to glare at him when Sarah’s fingers stopped moving in her fur yet again. “Your Google was right. I was windsurfing that day. I did get struck by lightning. But what it doesn’t know is that it wasn’t just a freak storm that blew in over Lake Michigan.” Sarah took a deep breath and rubbed Bandit’s ears. “In fact, I’m not sure what it was. All I know is I was surfing, then sizzling, then I spent what felt like a few hours in a strange room hallucinating…” A shudder raced through her shoulders and Tim resisted the urge to remove his hand from the steering wheel so he could run his fingers under her hair and rub the tension out of her neck muscles.

  “You still haven’t answered my questions. Where were you?”

  Sarah’s silence felt like it dragged on for a week. “Even if I tell you now, you won’t believe me. Not until you meet Alexa and Luke.”

  He wanted to push her but he was afraid she was right. He wouldn’t believe her. “Then tell me something I will believe.”

  “Friday morning, at dawn, Chicago is going to be attacked by an advanced weapon that uses some kind of freaky theoretical particles. All of Chicago, every building, every person, everything is going to vanish in a matter of minutes.”

  Nine million people. Theoretical weapon. Tim’s instincts roared to life. Surely those bastards couldn’t have completed the weapon already? He’d destroyed everything, all of his research, every hard drive scrambled, every piece of paper shredded and imposters put into play. He would not be another naïve idiot like Leó Szilárd. That poor bastard scientist had worked to develop nuclear weapons, then was shocked and resentful that the military dared kill people with his invention.

  Tim had dived in to electromagnetics and quantum theory headfirst. The possibilities? Exciting. Space travel. Unlimited clean energy. All the amazing things that could be accomplished with the technology dancing in his head, ideas from Star Trek episodes to science fiction classics suddenly made possible.

  But he’d seen too much, knew how that would play out. He might build a “warp drive” or make fossil fuel obsolete, but he’d give the war mongers a weapon too terrible to imagine. A weapon that could annihilate a city the size of Chicago in seconds.

  Hell, no. Point him in the right direction and he’d kill the bastards before they got the attack off the ground. He had friends who’d help. A few phone calls and he’d have a couple of “retired”, stateside guys ready to roll in less than twelve hours, guys who knew how to take care of things. “Who has a weapon capable of that? Where are they? And why did you show up in my backyard?”

  “I don’t know where they came from, but they’re not human. The Archiver didn’t tell me the details about them. I’m not sure even they know. They just told me about the attack. The CIA, FBI, police, military, none of them would believe me. You know that. They’d throw me in a dark hole somewhere and write me off as insane. Then Chicago would die and they’d torture me for information I can’t give them. And it will happen. They can’t stop it. I’m the only one who can stop it and Celestina said I need your help to do it.”

  “The Seer? A woman who told you that she can see the future?” Distance viewing. Precognition. Prophecy. His own life experiences. That a woman could witness a possible future was easier for him to believe.

  “Yes.”

  “Assuming I believe you, what, exactly, do you need me to do?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But we need to find their ship before they attack. And if we can’t find it, we’ll need a plan to deactivate the particles somehow once the attack begins. We have to figure out how to neutralize them, or redirect the charge. I honestly don’t know.”

  “You said a ship? Like what, a stealth bomber? Military jet?”

  “No. More advanced. A spaceship from another time.”

  “Bullshit, Sarah.” Good grief, the woman had him going there for a minute.

  “Why? Because it’s a U.F.O. or because I said it’s not from this time?”

  “Both.”

  “Yeah, well the joke’s on you then. You’re sitting next to a woman who died over twenty-five years ago. If you can buy that, it’s not much of a stretch to think other people would be able to use the same time-warping technology.” Bandit danced on her lap in annoyance as the tension mounted in the truck cab. With a sigh, Sarah settled her shoulders and released a long, slow breath before continuing. Tim bit his tongue, and waited for the next fantastic tale to fall from those perfect pink lips.

  “I was told that the bad guys are from the future. That’s why they have the advanced weaponry. The Archiver said they’ve been here trying to find these guys and stop them for about seven hundred years.” Without warning, Sarah reached across the console between them and touched the Mark burning on his neck. “That’s the symbol of the Timewalkers. We’re chosen, Taken, then Marked by the Archiver and his crew.”

  “So, you were gone for twenty-seven years because you were traveling through time. And you were recruited by other time travelers, in a spaceship, who’ve been here for almost a thousand years?”

  “Yes.”

  Assuming he could swallow that tall tale… “How are you supposed to redirect the charge of this weapon if it’s big enough to take out all of Chicago?”

  “They did something to me on the ship, after I’d been hit by the lightning. I can feel electricity now, kinetic energy, all energy. Everywhere. I’ve got to find a way to change the charge. Or absorb it. Something. I don’t know. That’s why I need help.”

  “So, you don’t know how you’re supposed to pull off this miracle?”

  “No. I have ideas, but I won’t really know what I’m facing until we’re under attack.”

  “We have less than seventy-two hours to come up with a plan? And you’ll have a matter of minutes to stop it? Then everything just explodes??”

  “Not exactly. More like disappears.”

  “Ionic particles? Electromagnetic particles? Dark matter? Geothermal? Solar? What are we dealing with, exactly?”

  “Don’t know. Celestina said it’s called Negative Matter. It annihilates everything it touches in seconds.”

  “And you want me to help you battle these mystery particles from a futuristic weapon while we’re in the middle of an attack by a hostile alien sp
aceship?” If it weren’t so ludicrous, he’d be laughing out loud. Negative Matter was every sci-fi geek’s wet dream. Totally hypothetical. That was the official world view, and he’d nearly killed himself making sure it stayed that way.

  The whole story should have felt like one big joke. Somehow, the serious, haunted expression of the woman beside him, the woman who claimed she’d traveled through time and dropped into the lake, naked, next to his boat just this morning killed any notions he might have of laughing.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I hoped the Archiver would’ve told you about this before my arrival.” A tear tracked down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away before squaring her shoulders. “This is why I need Luke. I always loved art and reading, but stunk at math. He’s a scientist and can explain this stuff better than I can. He’ll help you understand.”

  “I doubt it, but we’re about to find out.” She was sitting next to a mathematician and engineer, a guy who had worked on the cutting edge of experimental physics and quantum theory. He was one of the biggest math geeks around. Whoever the hell this Luke was, unless he was Stephen Hawking’s brain twin, he wouldn’t know a fraction of what Tim did. Why didn’t she know that? She seemed to know a hell of a lot about everything else. Or was it part of her plan to play dumb and wait for him to step into a mine field?

  Whatever her plan, it was like a dam had burst. Now that Sarah was talking, she appeared to be unable to stop. “Alexa is from another time as well. She just arrived here a few months ago for her mission. Celestina said it’s odd that another attack is happening so soon. The Triscani usually wait longer.” There was an edge to Sarah’s voice he didn’t like, a tight, clipped quality to her words that he only heard when a woman was enraged or in deep pain. Hell if he knew which one it was.

  “Who are the Triscani?” That was a name he’d never heard before, and he’d heard some crazy shit.

  “The bad guys. I don’t know much about them. I just know that the Archiver followed them here. They’re from the future, too.”

  “So, every few years this Archiver guy grabs a woman who was supposed to die, takes her up into his fancy spaceship, that’s from the future, and sends her through time to battle hostile aliens who are also from the future?” He tried to keep his voice even. He really did, but knew she’d heard the doubt in his tone.

  “I know it sounds crazy. I’m sorry. Just wait until you meet Alexa and Luke.”

  Tim pulled into the driveway but didn’t kill the engine. Sure, Sarah was here, in his time, and not dead. That was weird. But how did he know she was really who she said she was? Plastic surgery based on a decades-old photograph wouldn’t be too hard to fake these days. The assholes he used to work for would stoop lower than that if they thought it would get them what they wanted. Throwing this tall, sexy female at him was one of their more brilliant options. In fact, he’d bet his ass this Luke fellow worked for the same set of assholes he used to. The whole thing screamed setup. However, his bullshit detector, usually rock solid and always on, was strangely silent. Why? Nothing added up.

  “This is insane.” Tim didn’t mean to insult the woman, but what the hell was he supposed to think? An electromagnetic weapon like she described would mean certain death for a hell of a lot of people. The swing in world power, politics, and war would be on a scale similar to the shift in power after the bombing of Hiroshima when nuclear power entered the fray. No. Check that. It would be worse.

  An attack on the scale she was talking about? Millions of lives, billions of dollars in damage to the city? The whole country, hell, the whole world, would panic. Chicago was a financial mega-city second only to New York in big money and big players. No one in their right mind would try to control that kind of energy with hocus-pocus. If someone had actually built that kind of weapon…

  “Yes, it is insane. But if I don’t find a way to stop it, all of this,” she waved her hand in the air to encompass the city surrounding them, “all of this, all the people are going to be annihilated in three days. That’s why we have to find their ship before Friday. I’d rather take them out before they attack. The odds of survival seem much higher.”

  “No kidding.” He could call in some favors and get a team together, but the guys he knew from the old days would either fall over laughing, or ask him if he’d lost his mind. Probably both. They were soldiers, not physicists.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.” Sarah turned to face him and he no longer had the pull of the road to prevent his gaze from indulging in an intense perusal of her sad, stubborn, beautiful face.

  “I guess you were right.” Their eyes locked, and it was all he could do not to move forward. He stopped thinking at all, like she hypnotized him or telepathically controlled his mind and desires. He used to laugh at the weak-willed human that was seduced and controlled by a vampire on the television shows he occasionally watched. True Blood on DVD had become his guilty pleasure. Something about seeing those primal fuckers wreak havoc on the world appealed to him. No weakness tolerated. No bullshit. Just blood, will, and survival of the fittest.

  With Sarah, it seemed she was the hunter and he the prey.

  So not going to happen.

  Tim turned away from her and broke the spell just as Bandit growled and jumped to her feet, hopping back and forth from Sarah’s window to his as he finally killed the engine in the driveway of an impressive two-story colonial-style home. White house. Blue shudders. Red door surrounded by roses and expertly manicured shrubs beneath giant oak trees. An American flag hung prominently from a post next to the door. The whole place was picture perfect. It looked like the photo from a Christmas card, without the colored lights.

  Then the front door opened and a giant yellow lab raced to Sarah’s window, barking happily at Bandit’s supercharged growl. His vicious runt of a dog wagged her tail as fast as it would go and plastered her face against the window, covering it in dog snot.

  If nothing else came of this, at least Bandit was happy. Small consolation, but he’d take what he could get.

  Sarah’s hand closed around her door handle and he reached over her legs to cover her hand with his before she could open the door. “Don’t.”

  “He looks friendly.”

  “Let me go first. I don’t know these people. I don’t trust them.”

  She actually rolled her eyes at him, but she sat back and waved at his door with her free hand. “Go ahead.”

  Surprised at his reluctance to let go of her hand, he slowly pulled back and opened his door. As he walked around the hood to meet the yellow lab a woman emerged from the house. Tiny thing. Five foot two at most, maybe a hundred pounds, with hair that was so blonde it looked silver hanging to her waist. A welcoming smile reached all the way to her blue eyes. She was gorgeous and covered the distance with a bounce in her step. She wore a deep blue sleeveless dress that hung loose on her tiny frame and fell to just past her knees. Her bare feet barely covered by gem-studded flip-flops. She looked like a life-sized Barbie doll, not an armed operative. Tim relaxed a fraction.

  “Hi. You must be Timothy.”

  The muscles in his shoulders squeezed tight again. How the hell did she know that?

  Behind him, the truck’s passenger door opened and Sarah’s long legs slid into view, followed by her lithe body. His baggy sweatpants did nothing to hide her natural strength or grace. Sarah stepped forward until the two women stood within arm’s reach. She towered over their tiny host by nearly a foot, like a golden goddess looking down on a silver fairy. “Are you Alexa?”

  “I am.” Alexa stepped forward and held out her hand. “You must be Sarah.”

  Sarah nodded and shook the smaller woman’s hand while Bandit and the big dog said “Hello” to each other in the usual nose-in-personal-places method. Tim scanned the rooftops and moved closer to Sarah, in case there was trouble. “We should get inside.”

  The women ignored him.

  “How did you know we were coming?” Sarah scooped Bandit into her arms and cr
adled the dog against her shoulder.

  “The Archiver.” Silence descended while Alexa stared at the two of them in turn. Was it his imagination, or did Alexa relax a bit after searching out the matching Marks on their necks? “Luke will be here any minute. Please, come in. The Archiver wouldn’t tell Luke anything, but I know if you’re here it can’t be good.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Sarah sighed. She and Alexa looked at each other again, a sadness and sense of doom hanging in the air between them that he couldn’t understand or accept.

  “Yes. I’m sure it is.” There wasn’t a hint of humor in Alexa’s voice or a second’s reprieve from the melancholy look in her eyes as she watched them both. “How much time do you have?”

  “Friday at sunrise.”

  “Planet wide?”

  “Just Chicago.”

  Alexa nodded stoically and led them into the house, not a hint of doubt, disbelief, or question in her eyes. Instead, Tim saw understanding, empathy, and a healthy dose of fear in the tense lines around Alexa’s eyes and mouth.

  Both women looked like they were facing a firing squad. Either they were both insane, or they both believed what they were saying. Didn’t matter because he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Despite his desire to stay out of the soap opera, seeing the ladies’ obvious upset made him want to destroy something…even if it were a time-traveling alien’s spaceship. Hoo-Rah.

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  “Why Chicago?” Luke Lawson entwined his fingers with Alexa’s where they met midair between the two chairs and set his coffee cup down on the antique oak coffee table. Tim knew quality when he saw it, and they were all sitting on about forty thousand dollars’ worth of wood. His mother would have loved it. Tim found it a spectacular waste of money. But he had his back to the wall, Sarah sitting next to him on the sofa, a clear view of all the windows, and three people surrounding him who believed every word they were saying.